Technical Leader, Software Engineer (AI Canvas)

About the Role We’re building the next generation of AI-powered experiences at Cisco—and we’d love your help! As a Technical Leader on our AI Software and Platform team, you will play a key role in shaping how our products use AI at scale. You will work with us to design and evolve the backend platform that powers AI Canvas, AI Assistant, and AI capabilities across Cisco Cloud Control, Thousand Eyes, Hypershield, Duo, Meraki, Splunk, and Security Cloud Control. Together, we are creating systems that make complex technology easier to use through AI. You will help us build reliable, scalable distributed systems and guide how we bring LLM-powered features from idea to production. What You’ll Do In this role, you will lead architecture and design while working closely with teams across engineering, product, and SRE. You will help us design backend services for our unified platform, including orchestration, skill execution, and intelligent routing. You will also help us scale systems that support millions of users and ensure they remain reliable and performant. We will rely on you to guide how we build asynchronous processing pipelines using tools like Temporal and modern streaming systems. You will help us integrate with LLM platforms such as Azure OpenAI and AWS Bedrock in a way that balances performance, reliability, and cost. You will partner with teams to improve observability, strengthen system reliability, and solve complex production challenges. You will also mentor engineers, lead design discussions, and help us continuously improve how we build software. What You’ll Bring Required Qualifications We are looking for someone who enjoys solving complex problems and building systems that scale. You have 10+ years of experience in backend software engineering, including technical leadership. You are comfortable working in Python and understand asynchronous programming and concurrency. You have built and operated large-scale distributed systems and have direct experience scaling systems to multi-million monthly active users (MAU) . This requirement is essential for success in this role. You have experience building AI or LLM-powered applications, such as orchestration layers or retrieval-augmented systems. You are also familiar with workflow orchestration tools like Temporal or Airflow. You understand how to operate systems in production, including observability practices such as metrics, tracing, and logging. You have worked with cloud-native technologies like Kubernetes and are familiar with modern CI/CD practices. You communicate clearly, collaborate effectively, and are comfortable leading technical discussions across teams. Modern AI-Native SDLC (Required) We are evolving how we build software with AI, and you will help us lead that shift. You have experience using AI-assisted development tools such as Cursor, Codex, or Claude Code. You are comfortable working in structured, spec-driven development environments and understand how to move from idea to implementation through clear stages. You have experience with modern development workflows that include planning, execution, and review. You are familiar with parallel development approaches and understand how to maintain quality when working with AI-generated code. Preferred Qualifications If you bring experience in these areas, that’s great—but it’s not required! Experience with agentic AI systems or frameworks is helpful. Familiarity with LLM APIs such as Azure OpenAI or AWS Bedrock, real-time systems, authentication models, or feature flagging tools will also help you ramp quickly. What We Offer We know that great work happens when people feel supported and included. We offer competitive pay, strong health benefits, and flexible work options. You will have opportunities to grow your career, learn new technologies, and work on meaningful problems that reach millions of users. We are committed to building an inclusive environment where you can do your best work. What Success Looks Like In your first six months, you will work with us to shape key parts of the backend architecture and deliver features that reach customers. You will build strong partnerships across teams, improve system scalability and reliability, and help us solve complex technical challenges. You will also support the team through mentorship and thoughtful technical leadership, helping us continue to raise the bar together. Why Cisco? At Cisco, we’re revolutionizing how data and infrastructure connect and protect organizations in the AI era – and beyond. We’ve been innovating fearlessly for 40 years to create solutions that power how humans and technology work together across the physical and digital worlds. These solutions provide customers with unparalleled security, visibility, and insights across the entire digital footprint. Fueled by the depth and breadth of our technology, we experiment and create meaningful solutions. Add to that our worldwide network of doers and experts, and you’ll see that the opportunities to grow and build are limitless. We work as a team, collaborating with empathy to make really big things happen on a global scale. Because our solutions are everywhere, our impact is everywhere. We are Cisco, and our power starts with you. #J-18808-Ljbffr Cisco Systems, Inc.